Fight against ISIS reveals power of social media

It is hard to measure the real impact that the audiovisual strategy of ISIS on social media has in the radicalization process of a terrorist. It would be simplistic to conclude that the terrorists of Paris committed the attack because they watched ISIS videos on the internet. But at the same time, there are significant grounds to suspect that the ISIS audiovisual communication through social networks might be linked with the terrorist attacks.

The country that has received the most threats by ISIS via videos broadcasted on social media is Russia, with more than 25 in two years. France follows, with almost 20 in the same timeframe. During the last two weeks, events have shown that threats to those countries were not only digital, but also real.

On October 31, fourteen days before the attacks in Paris, ISIS released a video encouraging young people in France to join the terrorist group. Something similar happened on June 26, when a terrorist inspired by ISIS committed a terrorist attack in Lyon. One month earlier, ISIS had released a video on social media encouraging young French citizens to commit terrorist attacks. Finally, one month before the January 7 attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, ISIS released a video where a group of young French citizens asked their peers to enlist in the ranks of terrorist group.

Given these facts, it is more important than ever to analyze and understand the role of audiovisual communication in the radicalization of terrorists and to define an efficient way to counter it.

The whole rescue operation was filmed through the helmet camera of one of the Kurdish soldiers who also took part in the operation. The footage was leaked to the Kurdish media network “Rudaw” two days after the operation on October 24, and that video quickly became a viral phenomenon in social media, with more than 1.2 million views in only five days. This was ten times more views than the most popular video released by the Department of State received in over a year.

The video showing the images of the rescue contains key elements for becoming viral in social media: a short length (4 minutes), shocking images, cultural resonance from action films like Zero Dark Thirty, and a real, emotional story.

The success of the campaign was promoted through six different Twitter accounts specializing in countering ISIS in social media. These accounts have released video of the U.S. raid against ISIS on Twitter, adding the Arabic hashtags used by ISIS in their communications. According to data provided by the Twitter analysis software Tweetbinder, the six Twitter accounts published 843 tweets in one week with the Kurdish prisoner video, reaching an audience of 711,313 Twitter users.

Digital communications strategies

The success of this Kurdish social media campaign demonstrates once more that in this digitally-mediated world, not only is news important, but also how it is communicated. This includes the channels it is distributed in order to engage effectively with target audiences. Digital communication itself is a central strategy for countering terrorism, and any future military, political, or intelligence operation should take this into consideration.

The raid in Iraq revealed four important lessons for the U.S. and other allied countries to effectively counter ISIS’s digital communication strategy:

Military operations against terrorism should be accompanied by a digital communication strategy that provides audiovisual material to be shared on social medial.

Counter-narrative campaigns against ISIS should be based on true stories of Arabs and Muslims who have experienced firsthand experience the suffering caused by ISIS.

ISIS counter-narrative campaigns obtain more engagement and more views when they are distributed through non-government channels.

Videos and images containing real action images of counter-terrorism operations are in high demand.